Samsung may have already sold 5 million Galaxy S8 units to users

It looks like the Samsung Galaxy S8 is on track to be one of the most popular phones ever. Samsung has confirmed that it has sold 5 million units during the first few weeks of the phone’s availability.

“Although we cannot provide detailed figures, the sales are going smoothly around the globe. The combined sales already are beyond 5 million units,” Samsung stold Korean publication The Investor.

The news is good for Samsung. There was some skepticism over how well the Galaxy S8 would sell following the disaster that was the Galaxy Note 7. Clearly, the damage to the brand that was suffered during the Galaxy Note 7 debacle was not enough to seriously threaten future sales. Another report claims the the 5 million figure could actually be low — YonhapNews, another Korean publication, suggests the company sold a 7.2 million units so far. Not only that, but new reports indicate that while Samsung has sold 5 million units to end users, it has shipped 10 million units to carriers and retailers, so it is on track to reach far beyond that 5 million mark.

According to Samsung, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus enjoyed the best pre-sale period in Samsung’s history. Still, Galaxy S8 figures do not come close to the launch of Apple’s iPhone — typically Apple sells 40 to 75 million iPhone units per quarter, though of course, that includes all iPhone sales, not just the sales of the latest model. Samsung’s strategy has been to launch more phones rather than focusing on one or two per year and, as such, the company sells more units than Apple overall — but it cannot pin those figures on one or two specific launches.

It will be interesting to see how well the Galaxy S8 sells after a few more months and how its sales compare to the dominant iPhone.